Jacksonville Beach-Windy and Cold!

Love this interpretation of the weather!
If only it was this simple!

March 19-20
     We traveled about 35 miles on the ICW from St. Augustine to Jacksonville Beach.  The winds were steadily picking up, but the ride was smooth.  We passed by so many homes on the waterway, each with private walkways and decks where they keep their boats.  At least it was something to look at!  We also saw a flock of white pelicans, which I don't think I had ever seen before.  I have seen more than my share of brown pelicans, but the white ones were unusual.

     When we entered the river to the Palm Cove Marina where we had reservations, the winds had kicked up to 25-35 miles per hour.  This was a challenge for Karl, but he managed to pull the boat up parallel against the T-dock, with the wind pushing us fast approaching the side of the dock.  He quickly told me to get a fender ready to help protect us from crashing into the dock!  I managed to get one fender down, holding it steady as the dock master helped "catch" us!  Our boat weighs 55,000 pounds!  We managed to get 6 fenders on. The winds were howling, talk about a bad hair day!  The boat survived it, no harm done!  We noticed that the power station for our slip was completely bent over, just laying on the dock!  The dock master told us that the captain of the boat that was here before us had trouble getting off the dock because of the high winds and he crashed over the power station and just left without telling anybody!  I am sure he knew he had run over it with his bow, but made a fast getaway!  We were able to get power hooked up with another power station.

Our Reward for Docking in 35 MPH winds!

     We decided to treat ourselves to a nice dinner at Marker 32 Restaurant.  The reviews were excellent, stating this was a Five Star Restaurant. It did not disappoint, the food and atmosphere were great!

The Oldest City in the Nation

Lightner Museum

March 18
     We traveled about 18 miles from Marineland to St. Augustine, Florida and stayed at River's Edge Marina.  This marina is close to about any kind of shopping you would need: grocery, Target, West Marine, Lowe's, etc.  We were able to get Salty groomed at Pet Smart.  She came home with lavender butterfly bows in her hair!  It is also fairly close to the historic district.
 

     St. Augustine claims to be the oldest city in the US, founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers.  If you grew up in Florida as a child, most likely you have visited St. Augustine on a school field trip or with your parents on Spring Break!  It was crowded with people and so many kids!  The city is one big history lesson!  Kids love to climb around the huge fort, the Castillo de San Marcos built in the 17th century by the Spanish.  We wandered around, but found that one afternoon was enough tourist activities for us!

Spanish Architecture on this Church

   

Marineland, Florida

Marineland Marina

Exploring the area in our Dinghy!

March 13-15       Happy Birthday to our beautiful daughter, Joy, on March  14th!
     We are still in Florida!  It has been a little over 3 months and we have traveled over 1200 miles in our boat and we are still in our home state!  We have visited 20 marinas and have stayed in places we have never been before, so all is going well!  We are trying to get the timing down of where we want to be at certain times to enjoy good weather!  We have reservations to attend the American Great Loop Cruisers Association spring rendezvous in early May in Norfolk, Va.  This is a meeting of fellow "Loopers" where we will attend seminars to help plan for what is ahead of us!  It also gives us a chance to meet people who are traveling the Loop or are planning to do it.  It should be a lot of fun. So between now and May, we will be continuing our journey through Georgia and the Carolinas!

   
     We traveled a short distance to Marineland Marina.  Our first impression of this marina was, wow, this is really a small intimate marina in the middle of nowhere, a departure from the places we have been staying!  As we settled in and walked across the street, (A1A ) to the beach, we really started to love this place!  Away from crowds, buildings and condos, and even restaurants!  Not one store or restaurant within miles of us!  Just a stretch of gorgeous pristine beach with very few people on it!  The beach welcomed dogs, which we were so happy to bring Salty to let her enjoy it, too!
   
     We attended our first "real" Docktails party!  We visited with our new friends, Joe and Barbara, and another couple we met, Jackie and Jim, who are also doing the Loop!  A couple from a sailboat joined us as well.  A Docktail party is when you meet up together on the dock, bringing an appetizer, your own chairs and your own drinks!  It is kind of a spontaneous occasion and is a great way to meet new people who have common interests! Boats! And boating experiences and adventures.  It was a lot of fun, but we are probably spoiled now, because Barbara and Jackie outdid themselves!  Barbara  made Asian meatballs and even homemade chocolate cookies!  Yum!

Marineland

Red Footed Tortoise

Green Moray Eel

Octopus

Live Coral

     The main attraction here is Marineland Dophin Adventures!  It has been in existence since 1938 and we were pleased to get passes from our dock master at the marina.  We really enjoyed the park, it is a research facility and educational center to learn about dolphin, shark, and turtle behavior, as well as the marine ecosystem.  It is right on the ocean's edge and there were plenty of trainers and tour guides to lead you through the exhibits.  These dolphins are well treated and well cared for.  Once they are in captivity, they will not be allowed back in the ocean.  The oldest female dolphin was named Nellie and lived to be 61 years old.  Her offsprings still live at the center.  We "met" the dolphin who starred in the movie, Bernie the Dolphin

Nellie the Dolphin

Dolphin Movie Star!

 
 We watched both our teams play basketball, Kentucky and Florida State, both were winners that Friday night!  Very exciting to have such great teams to pull for in the tournament.  We always enjoy March Madness and especially this season, because Karl has more time to watch the games!

   



   

Welcome to Daytona Beach!

Welcome to Daytona Beach!

Bike Week in Daytona!

March 11-12
     We traveled from New Smyrna Beach to Halifax Harbor Marina in Daytona Beach.  Not only is it Spring Break for many colleges, but it is also Daytona Bike Week!   This is a motorcycle event held annually in this area for over 70 years!  Around 500,000 bikers from all over the world come to show off their bikes and have fun!  I found out that this is a well organized event with races, concerts, street festivals, vendors, rallies, etc.! We avoided the main street where most of the action was, but we saw and heard plenty of Harley-Davidsons and motorcycles!  They are loud!It seemed that most of the bikers we saw were around our age!

Barbara and me!
What a coincidence!

     Another fun thing happened, proving it really is a small world!  We met a couple from Lexington, Kentucky, Joe and Barbara Huber, who are on their boat named Balahula and are doing the Loop! Karl and I grew up in Lexington.  When I mentioned my Mother's name, Barbara exclaimed, "of course I know Isabel Yates!"  It turns out they recently worked together on a campaign for the newest mayor of Lexington.  Barbara is in the advertising and marketing business and my Mother is a well known politician!  We enjoyed spending the afternoon together, exchanging Lexington stories.

   

New Smyrna Beach

March 7-10
     We traveled 33 miles on the ICW to New Smyrna Beach City Marina.  It was a very pleasant trip.  The marina is small with a great park right across the street, perfect for walking Salty!  Canal Street is a few blocks away and it has loads of little shops and good restaurants.

    We went to a great Farmers Market on Saturday morning where we purchased lots of locally grown vegetables.  We bought a beautiful handmade colorful woven basket to carry everything in!

    We happened upon an antique car show on Saturday evening on Canal Street.  So many old cool

cars on display with their proud owners hovering over them!  We ate a good dinner at a restaurant named Corkscrew!

 
     On Sunday,  We rode our bikes to the beach and walked and ran on the beach.  It is unusual because they allow cars to drive on the beach.  It is a wide beach with hard packed sand.  The cars must have come early because they were all lined up on the beach.  Families set up their spot with chairs, tents, coolers, umbrellas, beach toys and grills right in front of their cars!
   

A Few More Days in Titusville

Hanging out with Astronauts!

March 4-6
     We returned to the Kennedy Space Station the other day!  There is a lot to see and do and the attractions are very interactive, fun for kids and adults! We spent the whole day there, saw the space shuttle Atlantis, "visited" Mars, saw the Rocket Garden, and loved the IMAX movies in 3-D.  One movie showed spectacular pictures of earth, taken from the international Space Station. We saw how the astronauts live on the space station. We saw a replica of the Hubble telescope and learned all about it.  We also saw a replica of the spacecraft Orion, which is a big project for NASA.  It will serve as a vehicle for astronauts to use to explore outer space.  Future plans for Orion include a   crewed journey to Mars! Our grandson's name is Orion, so we feel a connection to this project!
    We are waiting out some weather, it has been very windy with gusts up to 25 miles per hour today.

Karl standing in front of a model of Orion!

At the Controls of the Atlantis shuttle!
Would You Trust this Captain?

Space Walk!

LIFT OFF!

Video of the Launch of SpaceX Crew Dragon

Waiting in line at the Kennedy Space Center!

Thrusters

Saturn V Rocket ship, Largest rocket ever flown!

3/2
     We made it our mission to go to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the historical lift off of the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket carrying the Crew Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station!  It is the first time that NASA and private industry have collaborated together to design a spacecraft to fly astronauts into space with the eventual goal of allowing paying passengers to fly into space!  The lift-off was scheduled for 2:48 AM and we had the "golden ticket" to watch it safely and as close as legally possible from the same launch pad as was used for the shuttles that went to the moon decades earlier.
     To lead up to the lift-off,  Karl and I left the boat at 10:00 pm and drove our rental car to the Space Center and waited in line for an hour and a half, along with about 2000 other people who had the "golden ticket," too!  We were then transported on buses to gather in a building, the Apollo/Saturn V Center, about 4 miles from the launch site.  There were several exhibits to see and food and drinks were provided.  I had wondered what we could possibly do for almost 5 hours prior to the launch time!  We got to see the original control center for the first lunar landing, a land rover, moon rocks and the Saturn V rocket and watched some films of prior lift-offs to the moon.
 

Rover

  When it was close to the scheduled time, we gathered on bleachers or lawn chairs that people had lugged around for hours!  People got their cameras, binoculars and tri-pods ready!  There was a big TV screen that gave us up to the minute news on the lift off.

     Finally the lights went off, the count down began and everyone got eerily quiet.  Then we saw the explosion erupt and heard  the incredible loud booming and the clouds of smoke swirling.  Karl grabbed my hand and we just watched in awe!  Forgotten was the camera, we just used all our senses to take it in, the sky lit up and the noise was felt in our bones!  What an incredible sight! People around us started cheering and clapping! It was then that I was happy and thankful we made this effort to watch it up close!

The sky lit up!

   We watched the rocket streak across the sky for several minutes and then it disappeared for an instant when the Crew Dragon capsule disengaged, the first stage completed. Apparently, they turn off the engine thrusts to slow it down, but then in an instant we saw the orange ball again speeding through space!  We learned that the first stage landed back safely on a Florida ship and the Crew Dragon was on it's way to the Space Station to carry supplies.  It did not have an astronaut this time, but a dummy called Ripley (named after Sigourny Weaver's character on the Alien movie) was on board, mimicking what a real person would endure.  That is the goal of this mission: to get astronauts back into space from American soil!
     We boarded the buses, people all seemed quite excited, but were soon tired and ready to call it a night! We made it home safely and climbed into bed around 4:00 AM.  Our mission completed!